About 16 miles separate the Abound Solar plant in Longmont and the Ascent Solar plant in Thornton, but the gulf between the two companies is much greater.

Solar-panel maker Abound this week is slated to file for bankruptcy, and its 125 workers will lose their jobs.

But Ascent — which has moved away from traditional solar panels and into consumer solar products — has increased its workforce by 50 percent in the past 14 months to 130 and plans additional hiring, according to company officials.

The tale of the two companies underscores the perils facing American solar-panel makers as the price of solar cells has plummeted.

Both Ascent and Abound make “thin-film” solar panels. Abound applied a micro-layer of cadmium telluride to a glass plate. Ascent puts a film of copper, indium and gallium selenide cq or CIGS on a flexible plastic sheet. Both were supposed to cheaper than traditional silicon solar cells.

But since 2009, the price of silicon panels, driven by Chinese production, has dropped from $2.76 a watt to as low as 86 cents. In May, the U.S. Commerce Department imposed tariffs on Chinese solar panels after determining they were being sold below cost or “dumped” in the American market.

The answer for Ascent is an iPhone case with one of its solar cells on the back — and similar consumer products.

“Ascent has had a technology looking for a product; maybe they’ve found it,” said MJ Shiao, an analyst with GTM Research, a consulting group focused on renewable-energy markets.

To be sure, none of this means Ascent is ascending yet, as its stock has traded above the $1 minimum price set by the Nasdaq exchange just one day in the past 10 months, and it faces being delisted. Shares closed Friday at 79 cents.

“Ascent still has something to prove,” said Adam Krop, a stock analyst with Ardour Capital Partners, after the June 6 announcement of the iPhone case.

Rooftop and utility-scale panels, such as Abound’s, had become ” a high-volume, low-return commodity,” said Brad Kemp, Ascent’s director of sales and marketing. “We don’t want to be in that market.”

Ascent scrapped its plan to produce 80 percent of its panels for the commercial rooftop market and started looking for other markets.

It explored off-grid applications for cellphone chargers in Africa, water pumps in rural India and portable chargers for the U.S. Army.

Along the way, the company faced its own crisis in 2011 as it cut 80 jobs and slashed expenses to preserve cash. Since then, it has increasingly focused on the consumer market.

Ascent is already selling panels to Samsonite for use in backpacks and bags, but the iPhone charger is the company’s own product. Ascent also is working on a charger for Samsung’s Galaxy S3 phone, Kemp said.

The iPhone charger weighs about 2.5 ounces. It has a battery that holds a charge equal to about two-thirds of the phone’s battery and a solar panel.

Charging the phone with just the solar panel would take more than a day. “It tops off the battery,” Kemp said. “It is an add-on.”

It is first being marketed in South Korea and east Asia, Kemp said. The suggested retail price will be $68.

There also is a plan to license Ascent technology for a plant in Asia.

Ascent got a fresh infusion of cash last August. TFG Radiant, a joint venture between Radiant, a Chinese construction company, and Singapore-based Tertius Financial Group, bought 20 percent of the company for $7.4 million, or $1.15 a share — almost double the market price.

That is another big difference between Ascent and Abound. Ascent raised about $200 million in private money in three stock offerings. Its average share price has been $5.57.

Privately held Abound received a $400 million federal loan guarantee. California-based Solyndra, another privately held thin-film maker, got a $535 million loan guarantee.

Both are now bankrupt, leaving taxpayers liable for $535 million for Solyndra and up to $60 million for Abound, the U.S. Department of Energy said.

Ascent received a total of $3.4 million in government grant and research funds in 2011, according to company filings.

In January, TGF Radiant paid another $4 million to raise its stake to 41 percent. It will be the distributor for the iPhone chargers in Asia, and in June it placed an order for 50,000 panels for iPhone cases to be assembled in Asia.

Victor Lee, Tertius managing director, is now Ascent’s chief executive and is serving without pay.

“It looks like the parent trying to help out its investment,” said GTM’s Shiao.

More in Business

The owners of Boulder’s Sterling University Peaks apartments, who this summer were cited for illegally subdividing 92 bedrooms in the complex, have reached an agreement to settle the case for $410,000, the city announced Thursday.

A local union president slammed by Donald Trump on Twitter stood his ground Thursday, maintaining the president-elect gave false hope to hundreds of workers by inflating the number of jobs being saved at a Carrier Corp. factory in Indianapolis.

Fast forward to today, and Larkburger is celebrating its 10th anniversary, having grown from one restaurant in Edwards to 12 locations in the state amid increasingly fierce competition in the “better burger” world.